When choosing the right paper to realize my creative vision, I needed a product that not only looked awesome but also felt good in the hand.
After receiving a sample book of paper from Fotospeed, I was struck by how beautiful the photographic prints looked, especially on the matt papers. The blacks looked deep and rich, the colours looked accurate and the sharpness of the prints was exactly what I was looking for.
As soon as I loaded that first roll of thick matt paper into my 24″ Canon imagePROGRAF Pro 2100 printer I had a feeling that my prints would come out perfectly.
I was wrong. They looked terrible.
It wasn’t anything to do with the paper, it was entirely because I didn’t know what I was doing when it came to printing my own images.
Thus began a steep but short learning curve and thankfully the guys at Fotospeed were there to offer advice and guidance on the best way to prepare my image files for printing.
To start with, my images were all set to CMYK because I’d been working on my book ‘Chasing Awe With Gavin Hardcastle‘ and the colour profiles for the paper of my the book were very different to high quality archival printing paper required for museum quality prints.
Next Level Service
After a few emails back and forth with Tim at Fotospeed, I was able to get my images printing out onto Fotospeed paper with perfect colour accuracy, brightness and contrast but Fotospeed took it to the next level. Tim actually created custom colour profiles for me. Naturally, I assumed this was on account of me being some kind of VIP but he assured me that I wasn’t special because they offer the same free service to all customers that purchase Fotospeed paper.
The process was pretty painless. In a nutshell, you simply print off an image file that Fotospeed provides along with clear instructions on exactly how to print it. You then mail that print to the guys at Fotospeed HQ and they go through a tedious and painstaking scanning process of the image that came out if your exact printer onto their paper. Once done, they email a colour profile file that you load into your image editing software and you’re in business. Did I mention that they do this for free?
The Way My Images Were Meant To Look
Whether a client orders a small print or a massive panorama, I take great pride in ensuring that my images look their best. There’s nothing more satisfying than watching a giant panorama come out of the printer looking exactly how I want it to look. When I add my signature to the bottom of a custom print on that lovely matt paper from Fotospeed it makes all the cold mornings, blisters and sleep deprivation entirely worthwhile.
Get Your 10% Fotospeed Discount
If you create your own prints and would like to give Fotospeed paper a try, you can get 10% off orders within North America by using the coupon code GAVIN10 at this website.